casion Mr. Gubb was in a reasonably contented frame of mind,
for he had just received his share of the reward for capturing the
dynamiters and had this very morning paid the full amount to Mr.
Medderbrook, leaving but eleven thousand six hundred and fifty dollars
still to be paid that gentleman for the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine
Stock, and upon the further payment of seventy-five cents--half its
cost--Mr. Medderbrook gave him a telegram he had received from
Syrilla. The telegram was as follows:--

Rapidly shrinking. Have given up all soups, including tomato
soup, chicken soup, mulligatawny, mock turtle, green pea,
vegetable, gumbo, lentil, consomme, bouillon and clam broth.
Now weigh only nine hundred and fifty pounds. Wire at once
whether clam chowder is a soup or a food. Fond remembrances
to Gubby.

Mr. Gubb was thinking of this telegram as he walked toward his work.
Just ahead of him a short lane led, between Mrs. Smith's house and the
Cherry Street Methodist Chapel, to the brick-yard. Mrs. Smith's
chicken coop stood on the fence line between her property and the
brick-yard!

[Illustration: "DETECKATING IS MY AIM AND MY PROFESSION"]

Philo Gubb had passed Mrs. Smith's front gate when Mrs. Smith waddled
to her fence and hailed him.

"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she panted. "You got to excuse me for speakin' to you
when I don't know you. Mrs. Miffin says you're a detective."

"Deteckating is my aim and my profession," said Mr. Gubb.

"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "I want to ask a word of you about crime.
I've had a chicken stole."

"Chicken-stealing is a crime if ever there was one," said Philo Gubb
seriously. "What was the chicken worth?"

"Forty cents," said Mrs. Smith.

"Well," said Philo Gubb, "it wouldn't hardly pay me."

"It ain't much," admitted Mrs. Smith.

"No. You're right, it ain't," said Philo Gubb. "Was this a rooster or
a hen?"

"It was a hen," said Mrs. Smith.

"Well," said Mr. Gubb, "if you was to offer a reward of a hundred
dollars for the capture of the thief--"

"Oh, my land!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "It would be cheaper for me to
pay somebody five dollars to come and steal the rest of the chickens.
It seems to me, that you ought to make the thief pay. I ain't the one
that did the crime, am I? It's only right that a thief should pay for
the time and trouble he puts you to, ain't it?"

"I never before looked at it that way," said Mr. Gubb thoughtfully,
"but it stands to